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The group says it tries to ensure its donations have a greater impact by doing a thorough analysis of causes and groups and donating only to the most effectiveefforts.

Alan Fenwick, director of the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, one of Giving What We Can's recommended charities, says the society met with him a number of times and investigated his charity in depth. This, he says, is something no third party had donebefore.

An Oxford-based campaign, Giving What We Can, wants volunteers to commit to donating 10% of their earnings. It might sound unthinkable in straitened times, but is it really? The principle of zakat requires Muslims to give a fixed portion of their wealth annually. With the excesses of Christendom's festival fresh in our minds, the rest of us might usefully think about what we could dowithout.

Perhaps the most relevant point for most people is that whatever cause moves us, we should be looking for effectiveness. Rosqueta argues, for example, that if you want to help the hungry in America, don’t give to canned food drives. Instead, give money. Food banks can use it to buy in bulk — they can pay 10 cents a pound for food you’d pay $2 a pound for in a can. (And someone has to pay to ship the can.) Charities are often complicit — they will sometimes choose ineffective strategies like canned food drives because they are more attractive to donors. The solution is to be an educateddonor.

Give away at least 10% of your income, save lives and be happier. That was the message of the Oxford philosopher Toby Ord last year as he set up a charitable society called Giving What We Can(GWWC).

On its first anniversary the society has amassed £13m in pledges, and Ord, a research fellow in ethics at Oxford University, will today happily increase the money he gives away. He donates one third of what he earns, and has so far given all his income above £20,000 to charity. His wife Bernadette gives away all her income above£25,000.

Toby Ord - Not a billionaire philanthropist, but may do more to address poverty as his "Giving What We Can" scheme catches on. The Oxford academic has pledged to give £1m over his lifetime by donating a third of his salary. Has recruited more than 100 people to give at least 10 per cent of their salary forlife.

The charity evaluator organization "Giving What We Can", established by Dr Toby Ord of the Oxford Philosophy Faculty, has every reason to pop the corks for its third birthday: 269 members and $101.7 million in pledges have been raised since its foundation in Oxford in2009.

Organizations such as Giving What We Can (GWWC) put individual altruism into practice by maximizing socially responsible returns through identifying efficient charities while donors pledge to surrender a portion of their income to charitable causes… [they] are blazing a trail forindividuals.